AiRCAD

Brazil is suffering from the digital divide, despite progress in Internet penetration, there is ample room to enhance digital inclusion, as 42 million people, or 23% of the population, have never used the Internet, according to the  ICT Households 2018: Survey on the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Brazilian Households (database), Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil, São Paulo, https://cetic.br/en/pesquisa/domicilios/indicadores/.

Beyond the digital divide, between those that have access to digital technologies and those who do not, a second-level digital divide has been growing among Internet users in relation to their ability to use digital technologies effectively and benefit from them, according to OECD Skills Outlook 2019: Thriving in a Digital World, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi-org.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/10.1787/df80bc12-en.

The Brazilian Digital Transformation Strategy recognizes the importance of improving digital inclusion. The City of Sao Paulo Ministry of Innovation and Technology has established “Sao Paulo Free Fab Lab”, a free network of fab labs that improve the digital fabrication skills for public goods. The fab lab initiative includes a network of 13 fab labs in the Sao Paulo metropolitan area and has already served 50,000 people and 100,000 attendances so far. However, the initiative still lacks affordable and accessible solutions of 3D modeling software, and the pedagogical contents that goes with it, creating a barrier for its digital inclusion plan via digital fabrication. Our team AiRCAD provides an accessible and affordable 3D modeling software with built-in pedagogical content in Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality environments, further engaging learners and lowering the barrier of learning 3D content creation.

The City of Sao Paulo Ministry of Innovation and Technology has established “Sao Paulo Free Fab Lab”, a free network of fab labs that improve the digital fabrication skills for public goods. In partnership with the Sao Paulo Fab Lab network, AiRCAD provides easy-to-use educational 3D design software and the pedagogic content that goes with it, re-engaging São Paulo Youth in digital learning with transformative 3D Tools.

AiRCAD provides AiRGoggles, a mobile app, and instructions to students with smartphones. We leverage state-of-the-art mixed-reality and high-fidelity finger-tracking technologies to provide an immersive 3d modeling environment and learning curriculum at scale. AiRCAD collaborates with Sao Paulo Fab Lab network local schools to co-develop digital learningcurriculums that enhance the 3D creativity of students. The cost of AiRGoggle is as low as 5$ with cardboard, which can also be DIY produced with our open-source templates in the Fab Lab. Through our train-the-trainer digital learning program, students with AiRCAD software and pedagogical content would benefit from free creative education. This digital learning also continues in children’s homes with AirGoggles and smartphones.

Traditional 3D modeling software targeted at professionals focuses more on the fidelity and precision of 3D modeling and less on the learning experience itself. These tools are cumbersome to use and time-consuming to learn thus are not ideal for secondary school education purposes. On the other hand, existing solutions with a particular focus on learning 3d modeling lack real-time learning assistance or require additional hardware setup.

AiRCAD instead leverages state-of-the-art mixed-reality, high-fidelity finger-tracking technologies to provide a transformative tool for teaching and learning 3D modeling in an interactive, intuitive, and real-scale fashion. 

AiRCAD uses WebXR technologies to build a cloud-native infrastructure that works across multiple devices. In a secondary school education setting, teachers can demonstrate the modeling process on a desktop device while students in the same learning session can see the modeling process in an XR environment in real-time. Our WebXR solution also reduces the additional cost to purchase a VR headset, enabling students to access the XR environment with smartphones and an affordable AiRCAD goggle.

Moreover, AiRCAD builds a modeling tracking system to make 3d modeling pedagogies highly trackable and reusable. On top of such technology, AiRCAD projects fast growth in its educator and student communities. This also provides the possibility to cultivate financial literacy in the creator economy for secondary school students

AiRCAD demo video

Our solution mainly serve youth aging 5 - 18 in Sao Paulo, who have very limited access to digital skills and have a severe dropout rate of school. Our project aims to improve the engagement of youth into digital technology via providing affordable, accessible and intuitive 3d modeling software and pedagogical contents. We collaborate with local government-run fabrication labs and lower the barrier of learning 3d content creation and digital fabrication.

Our team consists of talent from various backgrounds including business development, technological innovation and government officials. 

Our CEO Yujie who is in charge of the overall business development of the team, is a serial entrepreneur from MIT. Yujie has rich professional experience in healthcare, mixed reality, digital farming, and supply chain industries as well as technology transfer from research to market.

Our CTO Runjia is an AR/VR engineer with working experience at Autodesk Generative Group and TikTok AR Effects Platform. 

Our COO Luciano da Silveira Araujo is the Director at the Secretariat of Innovation and Technology, São Paulo, who is in charge of the initiative to improve digital literacy in Sao Paulo and other areas in Brazil.

- Addressing critical digital divide challenges in Brazil and making digital learning and creative education accessible to São Paulo youth

- Expand our team's education expertise

- Time-permitting, we are planning to develop our project further based on the feedback from our pilot partnerships

First of all, Brazil has very limited access to XR devices such as Oculus Quest. Although there isn't yet solid statistics, local government officials indicate that the average price of a Oculus quest device is 5 - 6 times the price in the US market. The low purchasing power of Brazil Real made it even harder for the general public in Brazil to afford a XR device. AiRCAD provides the very first step to bring more Brazil youth to digital innovation and technologies via affordable hardware and software solutions. Youth in Brazil can learn 3D modeling and digital fabrication easily with our hardware and software

• Next Year: We focus on collaboration with São Paulo Free Fab Lab, our local partner in Sao Paulo and a free network of fab labs that improve the digital fabrication skills for public goods.

• Next 2-3 Years: We aim to establish partnerships with local schools and institutions to further improve 3d modeling skills for the public education sectors
• Next 4 - 5 Years: We aim to bring our product to the general public and more hobbiests, where everyone can benefit from the accessible and afforbale AiRCAD solutions.

- Engagement rate of youth to get involved in Sao Paulo Free Fab Lab network

- Engagement rate of local institutions and schools collaborating with Sao Paulo Free Fab Lab

- Creativity enhancement of youth before and after the digital learning program through 

- Qualitative learning experience evaluation from youth participants' survey

Traditional 3D modeling software targeted at professionals focuses more on the fidelity and precision of 3D modeling and less on the learning experience itself. These tools are cumbersome to use and time-consuming to learn thus are not ideal for secondary school education purposes. On the other hand, existing solutions with a particular focus on learning 3d modeling lack real-time learning assistance or require additional hardware setup.

AiRCAD instead leverages state-of-the-art mixed-reality, high-fidelity finger-tracking technologies to provide a transformative tool for teaching and learning 3D modeling in an interactive, intuitive, and real-scale fashion. 

AiRCAD uses WebXR technologies to build a cloud-native infrastructure that works across multiple devices. In a secondary school education setting, teachers can demonstrate the modeling process on a desktop device while students in the same learning session can see the modeling process in an XR environment in real-time. Our WebXR solution also reduces the additional cost to purchase a VR headset, enabling students to access the XR environment with smartphones and an affordable AiRCAD goggle.

Moreover, AiRCAD builds a modeling tracking system to make 3d modeling pedagogies highly trackable and reusable. On top of such technology, AiRCAD projects fast growth in its educator and student communities. This also provides the possibility to cultivate financial literacy in the creator economy for secondary school students

Our team consists of talent from various backgrounds including technological innovation,  business development, and government officials. Yujie and Runjia are serial entrepreneurs from MIT and Harvard. Luciano is the Director at the Secretariat of Innovation and Technology, São Paulo, who is in charge of the initiative to improve digital literacy in Sao Paulo with 20 years of international leadership experience in Design and Innovation.

AiRCAD functions as a non-profit organization and mainly cooperate with public sectors.

The income of AiRCAD mainly generate revenue from 3 sources:

• Institutions, Schools pay for software
• Big Corporations, Google and Amazon interested in investing in tech innovation
• Subsidies from government

 These revenue will be applied to cover the following potential cost:

• Material Cost: Material for 3D printing our hardware AiRGoggle
• Operation Cost: Host workshops, employ staff, maintain fab lab spaces

All the surplus profit of AiRCAD will be re-invested into the organization.

AiRCAD's main revenue comes from selling products and services to local government organizations and public schools. We sell our hardware AiRGoogle and software AiRCAD to public schools with governmental subsidies or directly to digital innovation sectors of government.

AiRCAD have received an equity free funding of 10,000 USD from MIT DesignX accelerator. We plan to use the initial funding for developing our MVP and we plan to launch our pilot with Sao Paulo government or public schools in Sao Paulo area and start generating revenue from there.